


if you listen hard you will hear my breath

by be_cum



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Abysmally Long Sentences, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, I was born and bred on Leo Tolstoy what did you expect, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Richelieu being sassy with everyone and bashing s3 with a gargantuan helping of, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 13:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14935484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_cum/pseuds/be_cum
Summary: Richelieu lives. Treville doesn't. The aftermath of the s3 finale.





	if you listen hard you will hear my breath

**Author's Note:**

> You know, what it says on the tin. Richelieu has been faking his death, the show has been fucking awful, Treville died. Dauphin is inspired by marriage!au I know nothing about apart from the fact that the Sun King is cute.
> 
> English is my second language, it's 6AM, can't be bothered to re-read now. I really don't know who would read this sad pile of angst and despair, but I have been cleaning out my "old trevilieu shit i will never finish" folder. And boy, do I like the challenge. I faintly remember starting it in January-ish 2017, when my salt levels over the s3 were really high and I wanted to see the real consequences of that lame ass s3 finale, and Richelieu just trying to figure out the fuck has just happened when he was chillin' in the Spanish prison, minding his own damn business. Honestly, this wasn't going to be that angsty.
> 
> Could be considered as a very very very faint follow up to 'no peace to the sword' and 'our disembodied state', but Richelieu is not amnesiac. 
> 
> You knew nothing of pain prior to this.

They came to him the next day asking to come back to Court.

"Cardinal..." Anne hesitated.

Richelieu looked at the window. He could bargain anything from her. The Queen had never been so weak and defeated. Powerless.

He could bargain for a position of the First Minister.

He could demand a complete control over the country’s policies.

He could ask for Aramis’ head simply because the musketeer (or a monk, or a Minister, who knows these days) was being annoying, and she would relent because there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to protect her son and his legacy.

“Cardinal.” The Queen’s voice was a nervous tremble in a shell of thin glass: firm and cold to the touch yet transparent and breakable.

Richelieu thumbed frail paper under his fingertips and wondered how everything had boiled down to this moment.

This moment shouldn’t have happened. It shouldn’t have happened even though Richelieu always knew it would. Because he is more often than not is right. Often enough to be always right.

You should not put your trust in anyone so blindly and completely. No one was good enough for that.

Richelieu did, even though he shouldn’t have. But he put his trust in the only person who was worthy of it.

But for exceptions, it’s a mistake. And look where they were now.

There was little left to imagination. The Dauphin arrived with the musketeer, Porthos, whose usually boisterous and upright posture was now slumped and stricken with grief. Whose doublet was covered with blood that choked the air, for some reason no one but Richelieu felt its suffocating smell constricting his throat.

The fate of his beloved state was hanging in balance. And for the first time in decades he did not what he should do but what he wanted.

“No,” he said.

Anne sagged, her face showing nothing but disbelief. To be quite frank, Richelieu didn’t entirely expect this answer from himself either.

“You!..” Aramis stepped forward, as if to lunge at him but before Richelieu had any time to react, to flinch, Marie stood between them, unmovable and still.

“You will not speak to Uncle in such manner,” she said, voice clipped and enunciating each syllable with deadly precision. “You are already overstepping his welcome.”

Aramis bristled with indignation but relented, how could he not. In a world built for men, Marie was gentle and quiet, unnoticed. And very, very dangerous.

If wars were fought in Anne of Austria's name, then Duchesse d'Aiguillon was the war itself, an invisible force that pushed a mass of water to tide over an army helpless in the face of nature.

“So much for your words about the good of France,” Anne was cruel and taunting and perhaps it might have worked once. Years of tumultuous reign hardened her. It was a good look on her. But, as many things, it was not good enough.

“I will not be responsible for your imprudent actions,” Richelieu replied.

He crumpled a piece of paper in his fingers. The room was stuffy and smelled of sweat and dried blood. Every breath failed to reach his lungs and stuck like a lump in his throat.

"Excuse me,” he stood up as his words left an air of finality.

The sun was scintillating and hot, heating wood of the porch. It smelled earthy, warm and late spring.

Fascinating how body could still function even though his mind was absolutely convinced of otherwise.

Breathing became a little bit easier.

Richelieu allowed himself a deep inhale followed by a slightly hitched exhale. If he was being watched and he most definitely was, his moment of weakness should have passed unnoticed.

It should have but a clank of armour proved him otherwise.

“If not for the Queen and the Dauphin, think of France,” Aramis came behind.

“I’m dead,” Richelieu reminded him. “You cannot ask favours from dead men.”

“I thought the state mattered to you.”

 _Idiot_ , Richelieu thought tiredly without any heat. In this musketeer’s mind, probably, ruling the country involved a lot of swashbuckling, dashing rescue missions and ample monologues about peace and happiness of the citizens.

He could only pray that such idiocy wasn't a hereditary trait. At least Louis knew the price of the crown he wore.

“Aramis, believe it or not, but I grew tired of being the person who has to get his hands dirty simply because others are too squeamish for that job.”

Honourable. Bluff and honest. And unbelievably, frustratingly stupid.

_You were such an idiot. This is all my fault, I should have known. I should have foreseen this. Such a goddamn idiot, why did you have to leave me and get yourself…_

Richelieu stood there for a little longer. Chaillot was a quiet place. Warm and peaceful. Sometimes he imagined them living here, when all was over, during very rare moments of wishful foolish thinking. But nothing ever was over, something always came up.

“I knew that you just don't have it in you,” Aramis bit.

He was expecting an answer. A sharp retort or an angry outburst, words hissed straight into his face about the good of France, about years of nothing but a loyal service, and yet Richelieu couldn’t find any vehemence or bitterness in himself to reply.

“If you had to endure what I do for things I hold most dear, you wouldn't last a day.”

 

* * *

 

He read the sermon during the funeral. The church was filled with the suffocant stench of incense and the smell of too many people in a closed space.

And blood. It was there, faint and metallic, a figment of his imagination.

He heard whispers and furtive glances thrown at him. Was he summoned by witches. Did he raise from hell. How come is he alive. Why is he alive and the Minister is not. _You fools, idiots, sinners, you think if I could trade places with him, I would this very instant, this is all my fault, I should have known, the bloo—_ But to most people he was Satan himself wrapped in cardinal cloth so no one was really surprised when he suddenly appeared after years of presumed death.

After the ceremony was over, he wasted no time and escaped in a side-door for clergymen.

There was blood. As if they burned it instead of incense, as if it was the dye for his cassock, as if it turned into an air itself, and the feeling made him want to crawl out of his skin and claw at himself until he was raw. He knew of the wounds though he couldn’t stand to see the body. He knew there shouldn’t be so much blood to cover every inch of the ground he stepped on, to follow him in the aether. For Richelieu anything more than a drop was too much.

And what is an ocean, if not a multitude of them.

Richelieu tried not to look anywhere but the narrow window in front of him. He never noticed how narrow and small they were. He never thought that the second safest place in the world could feel asphyxiating. Poisonous. He had had his hands trembling when Vatican befouled the relics with venom, it must be the poison.

Or Anne slithered a paper thin dagger in his chest as she entered.

“Cardinal,” she said. “I know it means little to you, but if anything, Treville would have wanted you to take his place.”

Richelieu appreciated the irony. He just did not have strength for it.

Anne looked at him, eyes full of unshed tears. Once he felt power over the woman. When he could render her tearful and speechless, when her maladroit schemes inevitably hadn’t fell through.

For a thousandth time in his life he wished he could have a choice in doing in what’s right and what he wanted.

He wished there to be a choice in the first place.

He caught up with Anne, the rustle of his robes making her halt.

It is a great error of judgement to presume that calculated decisions are made out of cold-heartedness. Nothing is harder than making a right decision over the one that’s driven on pure emotion.

_This is all my fault. I should have foreseen it. I should have foreseen it all. All because of your stupid paranoia and poor judgement, I should have foreseen all of it. I should have not let him leave me._

“I agree,” Richelieu said. “But only until the immediate crisis abates.”

She had no choice but to agree.

 

* * *

 

Lord, it was tedious. Repetitive. Frustrating. Papers to read. Things to negotiate. Stupidity to deal with. People to hang. People to murder. Old acquaintances to visit.

Speaking of which.

“How much?” Richelieu asked.

Milady had nothing to lose, she’d already lost everything important, and Richelieu had played not an insubstantial part in that. It was high time for him to pay back old debts.

“How much what?” Milady asked. She’s a young woman, still healthy to bear a child, still fresh so her beauty shined through her exhausted features. May be they all reach the point when it all becomes so tiresome. May be it’s not just Richelieu who felt so empty and worn out because there is nothing left to fight for.

“How much money and what do you need to live peacefully for the rest of your life,” he elaborated.

Milady named her price. A fair price to live comfortably in the countryside, undisturbed and alone.

Richelieu agreed and gave her a name.

Gaston was announced to be dead in a matter of days. Lack of berating for treating human lives as a cheap currency pushed like a heavy stone beneath his shattered breastbone.

When Richelieu arrived in her new home to hand her money, she accepted silently.

May be even the worst of them became so tired of violence, wickedness, lies and endless bloodshed.

Perhaps even the worst of them couldn't bear it alone.

"I won't ask for your assistance ever again," Richelieu vowed.

Thin chuckle barely grazed her red lips.

"And even if I do," Richelieu looked at her straight in the eyes; he did not bow nor did he kiss her hand because she deserved nothing less than to be treated like an equal in their last moment. "Don't accept."

He met various women and his ascend to power wouldn't have happened if not for many of them. He resented them and despised them for their emotions and greed and inability to deflect their personal interests in the name of greater good, he despised them because no one but his Marie reminded him of his late mother. Even so, he still appreciated the resilience and strength. Even so, he admired that. Very few men had it in them.

“Oh, I won’t,” she chuckled mirthlessly. “You can still pay me a visit. It appears that we are neighbours.”

 _Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what Count is your other neighbour_ , Richelieu thought _. Can’t apologise, you know I cannot resist the flair of irony._

 

* * *

 

“You look… worn out,” D’Artagnan remarked. “Your Eminence.”

“With all due respect, Her Majesty had only requested you to accompany me, not to make any misinformed observations.” Richelieu retorted shortly. “Captain.”

The word turned sour in his mouth, and he cringed.

He was a Minister, a good one for once.

The Court was far away, the whispers behind his back, he was heading to oversee the reconstruction of the garrison because apparently Richelieu was needed there as the First Minister. Such a loss for the country, heard he was the Captain of the Musketeers, before. A brave one, too. I imagine so, four gunshots or even more. Four gunshots. And he kept on fighting. Four gunshots, do you imagine how much blood there had been, he died like a soldier though, that was brave, oh, have you seen her cassock the other day, how quaint… Why people still talk about that, people have no right to talk about that. Him. Like that. Or at all. No one.

“You are bleeding,” D’Artagnan said.

“What?”

“Your hand, your grip was too tight and you cut yourself when we rode over the bump.”

“I am not bleeding,” Richelieu stated blandly. “There is no blood.”

“Your palm, however, tells another story.” D’Artagnan deadpanned. “Cardinal. Just— oh, fine, just take this, and then the physician will patch you up at the garrison…”

“Raise the curtains,” Richelieu ordered.

“The smell, I can’t stand it. Raise the curtains.”

“Your Eminence, you should bandage it, you’ll stain your robes, or worse, it will get infected.”

“Yes, I will, just raise the curtains, please,” Richelieu grabbed the offered handkerchief and blindly wrapped the cloth around his hand. Wetness instantly seeped through the cloth, but he didn’t feel anything dripping, so that was good.

It was probably _‘please’_ that did it, because D’Artagnan did what he was told surprisingly swiftly for a musketeer.

If he had to endure a very thoughtful gaze during the entire already unpleasant trip, it was still worth it.

Richelieu leaned out of the carriage, breathing measuredly. The air was of dubious quality, but at least it didn’t smell as dreadfully as inside.

He couldn’t clench his fist with the cloth in the way, but he felt acutely as the wetness dried on his fingers into a thin crust.

He needed to get out. He needed to get out, he needed to head off home, call for a bath of hot water, he needed to scrub it off, there was blood on his hand, in his lungs too, for he can’t explain why he just couldn’t take a goddamn breath, it was gunpowder that got into his throat, surely, if he just got out he could breathe again, the blood is his and no one else’s, he was foolish to cut himself, it’s his own blood, his own blood from the graze, it’s bright-red, look, no, don’t look down, it’s bright-red, the blood that took your life was deep in colour, oozing in jolts, four wounds, it must have been quick, he kept on fighting they said, was it painful, pray to God it wasn’t, it must have been, the blood, it’s his own and no one else’s, it cannot be J—

“Let’s get you inside for a moment away from that dreadful cold, Your Eminence,” D’Artagnan put a hand on his elbow. “You are shivering. We need to get the physician anyway.”

He walked mechanically in daze, his lips murmuring absent words on their own. Yes, bless you, God save the King, bless you, go and pray to atone to your sins, son, for God is merciful. The garrison looked different. He only ever saw it at nightfall, when it was dark, when the future of France had to be discussed and rows had to be shouted. The garrison did not look like the garrison at all.

“I’ll fetch the physician. Please, have a sit. Constance will tend you for now.”

There was a silent _‘Oh, will I?’_ passed between the spouses.

“I am fine,” Richelieu broke the silent moment because he had no patience for it. “It’s just a scratch.”

“Right,” Constance shooed D’Artagnan away and picked a bowl of presumably clean water. Richelieu could only hope it was. She put it on the desk with unmistaken reverence, and Richelieu raised his eyebrows in amusement only to realise a moment later, _oh_. It was very unused. It was dusted regularly. The room seemed half lived-in, a segregated area of the current reluctant inhabitant and the previous one that wore this place like a second skin. _Oh, right_.

He needed to get out. Go home. His staff surely can do a better job than Constance of scrubbing the flaking red crust off his skin, gently peeling the soiled cloth away, there’s so much water in that bowl, so much. Red dissolved and faded into lighter shade like a drop of ink.

Four gunshots and a poor decision. All that it took to take a life so precious.

He had to get out, but a grip on his hand was steady and deceptively light, pinning him to place.

If he took a deep breathe through his nose and breathed out softly, no one would notice his desire to gasp for air, claw at his useless lungs and choke out ragged inhales. Almost no one ever did. If he could, because the windows were closed to shut out the screams and clinking swords, it was hot and stifling inside, sweat beading his forehead uncomfortably. It could not be the first days of December, it felt like May. _Smells are so much worse in May._

“Your Eminence, for your information, I’m a very close confidante of Her Majesty. You can’t harm me.” Constance keeps her gaze level and firm.

“Madame D’Artagnan, please don’t take it to heart, but you are really not worth my effort.” Richelieu replied through his clenched teeth.

“What I was trying to say, that if I said that you should breathe before you faint, and if I kept talking you would have no other choice but to listen.”

Richelieu took a shallow breath. The air made him nauseous.

“Feels strange,” Constance persisted in a convivial manner. “We don’t use the office often. Feels strange and just makes me miss the Capt—”

“Are you qualified to tend to my wound?” Richelieu interrupted. “I have Mass tomorrow.”

“You are going to faint if you keep going at this rate. Take a deep breathe, Your Eminence, there’s no place for paranoia. No one is trying to assassinate you.”

“You will find that I’m a difficult man to assassinate, I have a tendency to revive. Do open the window, please.” He slammed his hands on that desk more times than he could count; his hand felt a ghost of a throb at the impact. He shouted until his throat was raw and his voice hoarse. Constance was right; it felt strange.

“You are shivering,” Constance’s expression changed from annoyed dislike to frightfully genuine concern. “Your Eminence, are you quite alright?”

“No, I’m suffocating in that room that you seemingly never air.” He felt a jittering pulse as if his heart tried to departure the no longer serviceable vessel via his throat.

“Take a deep breath, Cardinal, I can’t have you die on me.”

“Then open the goddamn _window_ ,” Richelieu hissed and snatched his hand from Constance to stand up and do a simple job which apparently no one was able to perform in this useless garrison.

The winter wind hit him in the face, knocking the air out of him. The lungfuls of air felt like piles of crumbled glass, yet Richelieu continued taking deep breaths until the back of his throat was raw and painful and cold.

He rested his temple on the window frame, petrified to turn around.

Constance came up to his side and leaned on the sill. From the distance it seemed as if Richelieu was overseeing the construction sites and the training. Up close Richelieu compelled himself to stand by sheer force of will, taking ragged choking breaths.

“You look dreadful,” Constance stated. And then amended, “Your Eminence.”

“I have already told your husband to abstain from making unnecessary and unwelcomed observations.”

“You know what he used to say? Ignoring the wound does not will it away, it only festers.” Constance looked at him. “He really hated you.”

“I am well aware.” She evidently wanted to talk. At another time, at another place Richelieu would have relented, however that was not the time, nor place. He almost felt sorry for her, for she genuinely grieved and had no one to talk to. That was not an excuse to talk to him, of all people.

“He was your long-standing adversary, wasn’t he, Your Eminence?” She looked on thoughtfully. “I can’t even imagine knowing someone for that long. Three decades is a very long time, so he had told me.”

Three decades was a lifetime. Half of French citizens did not live up to that age.

Three decades was an eternity and it was nearly not enough.

“Thank you for bandaging my wound, Madame,” he answered without missing a beat.

“What I was saying—”

“I have to be at the Palace in two hours,” Richelieu straightened his back and moved towards the door. “I must do what needs to be done; I have no desire to stay here longer than necessary.”

He walked past the physician, only sparing a second of his attention to fetch D’Artagnan.

He absolutely detested the stark and plain truth that it took that Constance wench for him to concede that he had a minor problem.

 

* * *

 

“Do you want me to close the window, Uncle?” Marie asks after kissing his forehead to wish a restful night.

“Don’t worry, dear,” Richelieu smiles. “Smells peculiar, doesn’t it? Do tell the servants to air the room more often, though.”

“It is late February, Uncle,” Marie says worriedly. “The winds are cutting at night. You could catch a fever.”

He could not stand Marie in distress no more than he could suffer through that thick stench.

“You are shivering, Uncle,” Marie comes back and covers his hands with hers, small, delicate and infinitely warm. “Good grief, your hands are freezing, I shall close the windows and just give me a moment to order to lit up a fire—”

Gun powder, hot metal piercing the body, the smell of burned flesh; incense and candles lit for the souls. The smoke that got into your mouth, watered your eyes and travelled down your lungs very much akin to water, until you are left gasping for air that would not come. Very much akin to blood when the lung is pierced by a small metal and unassuming bullet. Small things, really. Four of them what takes it, so he had been told.

He felt the mattress dip beneath him as she perched gingerly on the edge of the bed.

“You can tell me anything,” she pleads. “Anything. Am I not your most trusted confidante anymore, Uncle?”

He had to give her ample credit; she became quite versed at emotional blackmail. He had been subjecting her to it for years; it would be foolish to think that she hadn’t picked a trick or two.

“Of course you are,” he squeezed her fingers tightly to hide the tremble. “I just… I can’t sleep well in a stuffy room lately. It smells unpleasantly.”

“I’ll order to bring another quilt,” she whispers. “Oh, I am so foolish for helping the Queen! You should have said no, Uncle, it is high time for you to rest from all of it.”

“Child, do refrain from such talks outside of the house,” he crossed her. “You did what should have been done and so did I. We’ll spend the winter at Chaillot if you wish.”

When Marie finally left, Richelieu lay under a pile of blankets, staring at the sky through the glass panels.

He just wished for one night. One dreamless restful night, when he could just close his eyes and sleep. Or at least rest and not feel by that horrifying stench.

The palms of his hands were wet. Slippery under soaked bedsheets, soaked with—, no, it couldn’t be, it couldn’t possibly be, it’s just his tired and exhausted mind, there could not possibly be any blood, he’s not bleeding, he’s not shot, he’s not dying — four wounds they had said, or possibly more, four gunshots or even more what took the Minister down, Lord is a witness, he was made of sterner stuff, did you hear the late King appointed him a Regent — the smell of iron and copper, red, I am so sorry, I shouldn’t have let you, you shouldn’t have trusted those fools, I know you love them but you shouldn’t have, please don’t go, they’ll manage without you, just why did you have to go, why can’t I just give up and follow you, I am so sorry, it is all my fault, oh Lord there’s blood, there’s so much blood—

 _Water_ , Richelieu realised as he slumped weakly next to the dying light of the fire, exhausted from his stumbling run from his bed to the fireplace. _I knocked the decanter on the bedside table in my sleep._

There was water on his face too. It had bitter salty taste to it.

No need to alert the servants. Richelieu glanced at the clock. He would wake up in three hours, not a sliver of rising sun in sight now. No need to go back to bed, surely. He could already feel the faint throb of migraine behind his eyes.

 _Yes, from the chronic absence of sleep. And you try to fix it by not sleeping. I have been telling you for decades that you are an idiot, but this takes the crown. You know if I were here, I wouldn’t_ _—_

He resolutely walked to his desk he kept in his bedroom and lit a few candles. He would just have to go to bed earlier, then.

He knew he wouldn’t.

 

* * *

 

“My Cardinal!”

“Louis, mind your manners.”

“My Eminence!” The young King ran up to him and handed Richelieu an unskilfully crafted wooden ship. It had a tiny French flag glued to the top. “Look at my ship!”

“It is beautiful, Your Majesty,” Richelieu said earnestly, cradling a piece of wood in the palm of his hand.

“Will you make me a thousand of ships?” Louis asked earnestly. “Take this one with you, so it doesn’t get lonely.”

A few hundreds were a mighty struggle. Richelieu raised an eyebrow at Anne. She surely brought up her child to be ambitious.

“…I’ll see what I can do, Your Majesty.”

Richelieu never truly understood the point of such meetings. At first he came to the Palace expecting to receive the Queen’s correspondence or an update on her affairs; he did not wish to mediate another war because of her indiscretions. But it was only Anne and him drinking tea in complete silence, Marie behind his back as the only lady-in-waiting allowed during such audience. And the young King running around, but mostly bothering him.

He could not ask for an open window as he was worried about the King. But it got easier, with time. It never really stopped; he just learned to manage it better. Care for the wound, not allow it to fester. For some reason it was easier when he knew he had someone to care for. The young King, albeit in a fairly abstract way. Marie, to keep her worries at bay, he could not stand her miserable and worried, never could have. The voice in his head, that’s been there for over three decades, though it had lost its vessel a year ago. Sometimes, when things were unbearable, he would close his eyes and conjure up that voice. His body obeyed thoughtlessly, as if it was an instinct ingrained in the very marrow of his bones.

Marie looked up from her book and gave him a reassuring smile. She did not have to stay, but the Queen never asked her to leave nor did Richelieu. She effortlessly stepped in where Richelieu expected to be someone, not an empty place. It wasn’t enough, but it was all they could do, and sometimes life was the way no one wanted it to be.

Marie found herself praying for forgiveness more and more frequently, though she had long forgotten what sins she atoned for. Having thoughts of leaving her Uncle’s side; of wanting to do so; thoughts of doubt in her Queen; guilt for inadvertently having a hand at death of a very good man by helping another desperate woman; things that were never truly gone, only managed.

Richelieu managed an entire nation. He could afford adding grief to the number of plates he had been juggling for three decades.

The King crawled on his lap, enveloping in a bone-crushing embrace that only children could deliver.

“Don’t be sad, My Eminence.”

“I am not sad, Your Majesty,” Richelieu carefully tried to extricate himself from child’s rather strong grasped and promptly failed. “Your presence is like warmth of a spring sun.”

“Am I a sun, then?” The King asked excitedly. “Sun makes me happy, because then I can go out and ride my pony. Do I make you happy, My Eminence?”

“You are a sun, my King. And of course you make me happy,” Richelieu smiled at the boy and was taken aback at the sincerity of his words.

It was strange to like this child. Not only because he was the future of France, not because he was God’s executor on earth. But because young Louis radiated happiness and wonder at everything surrounding him, because he easily made friends, because he was naïve and blessedly young. Because he, though Richelieu couldn’t say it’s Bourbon’s blood, reminded him painfully of Louis at times: the proud jut of his chin, the bravery and fearlessness when need be, cold reservedness with others and unrestrained affections for the loved ones. Because he was everything his father wasn’t, and he had all the potential to be. Because for some known to Lord only, young Louis adored Richelieu endlessly, and to the latter’s amazement the feeling was very mutual.

“Will you ride pony with me when the sun comes out?” Louis asked and dangled his tiny feet against the red of Richelieu’s robes. Anne gave her son a loving smile and even looked at Richelieu with hidden amusement and unwavering trust to keep her son from harm at all costs. “Mother told me you used to fight at Papa’s side; surely you can ride a pony.”

Richelieu held Anne’s gaze and twitched a corner of his lips. One thing he could trust Anne was to never let her son forget his father, if not by blood. Richelieu could tell it was the foundation of many heated arguments between the Queen and her lover, but Anne stood her ground firmly. It probably caused a great deal of distress and sorrow for, what is his name, d’Herblay, but he had not an ounce of royal blood in him, so he wouldn’t understand anyway. As long as he didn’t cause trouble and another Civil War, Richelieu was content to leave him alone.

“I’m too big for a pony, Your Majesty. And a bit old for riding,” Richelieu let down the child gently. The young King smelled of innocence, child, sweets he had earlier and scintillating spring sun. Not a hint of suffocating copper.

“Walk with me, then. You are very clever, My Eminence, I find your presence reje… reju… rejuvenating.” Young Louis fiddled with the soft folds of Richelieu’s robes. “Will you stay for summer? Mother says you are leaving.”

 _That was a low blow_ , Richelieu thought. She’s learning fast.

He did think of leaving. The crisis abated, few things could be managed without his direct supervision. Marie herself was perfectly able to discreetly guide the Queen into the right direction, keeping her thinking that it was her decision all along. A skill Richelieu never quite honed.

“I haven’t decided yet. There’s business to attend to at the countryside,” Richelieu said carefully.

“Well, I order you to stay,” young Louis said simply. “I don’t want to leave me, ever.”

He jutted his forehead expectantly, and Richelieu obediently placed a kiss on his forehead.

“I’m Your Majesty’s humble servant.” The King was perfectly content with his answer.

“Darling, would you like to take a walk with Marie? The Cardinal and I will join you at the Mass. He’s leading today.”

Louis kissed Richelieu on the cheek soundly, repeated the action with his mother, though it was an abysmal breach of etiquette, and was long gone before Richelieu even lifted his hand to cross the child.

Marie shut the door behind them.

“I must thank you for your patience with my son,” Anne said sincerely. “He can be quite a handful.”

“The pleasure is mine, Your Majesty,” Richelieu replied equally sincere, for it was the only subject the Queen and he saw eye to eye. “The King grows in leaps in bounds, and is infinitely happy. It’s an honour I feel everlasting gratitude for, to see his progress.”

And he did feel gratitude to Anne for those meetings. Probably she needed them too for her own reasons. To make sure he stayed faithful to his King; keep a sliver of Louis in child’s memory through his most devoted servant; feel reassurance, for once, that her son’s legacy wouldn’t crumble to dust come morning. Probably, as Richelieu, she sometimes needed someone whom she could trust. Anne could trust Richelieu with her son and with her country, but she couldn’t trust him with anything else. And amongst the sodden in intrigues and lies Court to know what to expect from someone was a breath of fresh. If Richelieu provided her with such comfort, so be it.

“The Minister would be proud,” Anne said brokenly. “If he could see this.”

Richelieu closed his eyes and took a deep breath. She was wrong in more ways that he had energy to count. He would be very pleased at the improved relationship between Richelieu and the Queen. He would pester and tease Richelieu endlessly for his soft spot for the young King. He himself would spoil this child rotten. He would not feel pride for his Queen, however, nor for the mess Richelieu worked days on end to mediate because of her susceptibility and fearful indecisiveness.

He, as Richelieu himself, would feel his devotion to the monarchy waver, but he would persist and carry on for the sake of the young King and the future of his country. Because he, as Richelieu himself, would want to clear the path for the young king. Because this child was destined for greatness. And behind every great King stood a great state. A great state… That what Richelieu could shape to leave in his wake. A foundation for the great state for the great King.

However, that was just stupid wishful thinking; conjectures and surmises were most sentimental and foolish.

“If he could see this, he would forgive me for my deeds, don’t you think, Cardinal?”

Richelieu hurriedly put his cup back on the saucer as his hands grew unsteady. She begged absolution from _him_. Of all people.

He was a man of church, so he knew that Lord is merciful. He was a man of church, so he knew that didn’t apply to his servants. He was so spent, so tired. He had to offer her forgiveness and a night of restful sleep, and she probably expected it from him. He would probably never have such meeting ever again. It was an incentive enough to offer her what she wanted, but Richelieu couldn’t simply because he had none left. He spent it on himself in increments over the year, and if it was selfish and sinful and to refuse his Queen anything, so be it.

“You killed him,” Richelieu said quietly. “I defer it to your judgement.”

Anne flinched.

“I didn’t…”

He could feel the coppery taste in his mouth. Blood was not what killed a man, for it when contained in a man kept him alive and breathing. Poor decisions led to a lot of lethal consequences. Such as four gunshots, possibly even more. _I am so sorry, I should have known. It is my fault. You idiot, it’s not your fault. Listen to me and count your breaths. One, two, three, four, I love you, breathe out, it smells of sun, and spring, and flowers in the Louvre gardens, and. I am so sorry. Please don’t be, it smells of an evening at your place in the countryside. It’s just wistful thinking, you are not even here. But you know exactly what I would say for you know me better than yourself._

“You killed him because you thought your position at the Court would be undermined if he were to become a Regent.” Richelieu’s smile was mirthless. “You claimed to be his friend and yet you thought so lowly of him. Your Majesty, I have been in politics for three decades and I can safely say that all of my downfalls took place because I underestimated my adversary. It is mistake that could be deadly in some instances.”

He missed a beat, because the air was thick and red, and it was difficult to draw a breath quickly.

“You grow to be strong and competent ruler, Your Majesty. Being a good judge of character is a rather vital trait.”

Anne’s pallor was more fitting for a marble statue than for a human, Queen or not.

“Your Eminence,” she grasped his hand and held on tightly. “Cardinal—”

“It is an acquired skill, however. I hope you will allow me offer you my assistance along the way in the beginning,” Richelieu crossed her and released her hold on him. “I apologise profusely for leaving in such haste, but I have to be at Mass in fifteen minutes. Thank you, Your Majesty, for your time.”

The Queen was about to reply or to question why he suddenly cared so much about a man he spent the majority of his time arguing endlessly, but Richelieu respectfully bowed and left.

The young King was right, after all. The sun felt very warm and nice. Perhaps he should visit, for once.

 

* * *

 

The grave was simple and sturdy. Since his appointment as the Minister, Treville specifically requested to avoid _‘all that stupid nonsense’_.

Richelieu did not have flowers with him but he knew that Treville wouldn’t appreciate the sentiment.

He kneeled, robes brushing wet dirt.

“You don’t know how tedious this whole ordeal is.”

“I miss you,” Richelieu said. “Your people are insufferable. The Queen and her lover, too.”

The stone looked dull and faded against the bleak morning sun after a midnight rain.

“The King is growing up very fast.” Richelieu smiled. “He will be a good ruler in ten years or so. Reminds me of Louis, with all that noise and stomping. But much, much happier. He made a ship for me and asked for a thousand in return. I gave it to the Queen, to put next to his father’s frigates.”

“Oh, and I inquired about Porthos’ child, Marie Cassette. She is well. I thought you’d like to know.”

Here he was, making a complete fool of himself by talking to a stone.

“The crisis will soon abate, but I have premonition that I will stay in Paris for longer than necessary, far into the autumn.” Because the cycle never stopped. There was always a war to win, people to hang, people to kill, finances to manage, countries to dominate, intrigues to plot, children to love. “And I hope you are— I know Lord had heard my prayers, but I wish I knew for certain.”

Surely Lord would grant him this. Richelieu had just one request; surely He was merciful to grant his servant his only wish.

"If we will meet again, Jean, I will be furious," Richelieu said. "I did not spend all that time praying for your stubborn soul to go to Heaven for nothing."

Thirty years was a long time, and Richelieu frequently wondered how the future would look like without Treville but could always only come up with nothing.

He was rarely wrong and in this instance he wasn't.

No soul, however sinful, should carry its burden alone.

“The war, it is exhausting. It always has been.” Richelieu’s voice hitches, but he continues. “It is difficult, Jean. So difficult.”

A sentimental old fool. Age happened to them all. Well, perhaps not. Not to everyone who truly deserved it.

“Sometimes I dream of things that are not there,” he confessed. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. But I manage. I miss you, but I manage. That’s the best I can do.”

Richelieu stayed there for a bit longer.

Sentimental fools thought the people they love gaze upon them from the sky. Even on the clearest of days the sky couldn't match the blue of his eyes.

There was something Richelieu wanted to say. Probably he thought it went without saying; Richelieu hoped that Treville knew.

Richelieu lost many people and he regretted many things he hadn't said or done. When it came to Treville regret wasn't a feeling he felt. Everything had already been said and done.

“I am grateful, though.” Richelieu said. “For you. Never told you frequent enough. Never seemed enough time, it always seemed to pass so quickly, and I have to admit that the past year felt so much longer.”

He never realised that the burden he carried for more than half of his life — he never carried it on his own.

It was only when Richelieu had been left with an empty place by his side, alone, as he hadn’t been for decades, he realised that at some point in his life Treville wasn’t there. That he had lived for under half of his life without Treville. That thirty years with Treville had been the only part of his life that mattered.

Jean knew all of that, because it had been whispered into his lips, mapped out on the expanse of his skin, etched on the insides of his heart, but still. He just wished he had a chance to say it one more time, that’s all.

“Thank you.”

 

_fin_

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from Ng Yi-Sheng's "kami/kaze: a correspondence".
> 
> I literally don't know where this all pain and angst come from, I really don't know.
> 
> I should have written more, especially concerning the ending bit, because the entire thing is hella rushed, should've worked more on overcoming this horrible sadness, but a) can't be bothered, this is like a rough half-assed thing with missing paragraphs in between b) do you really need more excruciating pain.
> 
> P.S. Sylvie and Milady kick Athos out, raise a child together and live happily ever after as a lesbian power-couple, thanks for coming to my TED talk, bye.


End file.
